Nobody said it was easy
by Sleeping Stardust
Summary: "Because all that good he is, all that light, draws her out of the blackness. Makes her better. And not the other way around. The light in people defeats the shadows." Or the four times The Team seach for love and did not find it. And the one time love found The Team.


**I ****obviously ****don't own Young Justice (although sometimes I wish I did) or the DC characters. Hope you enjoy. R & R!**

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><p><span><em>Nobody said it was easy <em>_  
><em>

Kaldur loves Tula from the moment he meets her.

Well, maybe not that early, because they meet each other when they are five and starting their former education. And he's always been mature for his age, you know, but not that mature.

But he does love her from the moment he realizes what being in love with someone from the opposite sex means. And he never really stops as the years pass by.

How could he?

They grow together, side by side, and he sees her become the most intelligent and kind-hearted girl in Queen Mera's Conservatory of sorcery (but again, he had seen that in her from the very beginnig).

He can't even imagine a future that has not Tula in it, but then Ocean-master attacks Atlantis and Aquaman is defeated. Kaldur doesn't even think about what he's doing before stepping into battle along with Garth. He just knows that there will be no future at all if Ocean-master wins. They are easily defeated, of course, but it gives King Orin time to recover and beat his opponent.

And just like that, Garth and him are rewarded with the opportunity of become Aquaman's protégés. Garth declines the offer, but Kaldur can't stop thinking about it, not because it's a great honor or because he wants the fame and fortune, but because it's the opportunity to do something good, something great for everyone he loves.

The only thing holding him back is Tula, really, but then she gives him her blessing to go, and makes him promise to come back alive when it's time. (And he think maybe, she's known it all along).

So he goes away and becomes Aqulad, a superhero. He meets the surface world, and likes it. He becomes close to King Orin, and enjoys it. He makes some new friends (superheros like him, all young and too reckless, too crazy) and he loves them all. He joins The Team, and finds a family, and leads them.

But Kaldur is still there, and he is still in love with Tula.

So he goes back to her, of course. Only to find her involved with Garth.

Kaldur doesn't understand, at first. Can't understand. All he feels is betrayal. And it hurts like anything he's ever felt before.

But once again there's an attack, and once again that changes Kaldur's life.

Tula receives an electric blast for Garth. And Kaldur can't even bring himself to stay with her, he realizes it's his best friend's place now, he is a warrior , a hero, and that means he doesn't want to protect just Tula, but his whole world.

Black Manta is defeated. Tula recovers. Kaldur knows he belongs in the surface now.

And as he goes, he recognizes the look on Tula's face when she looks at Garth, because is the same look he has when he looks at her.

He never really gets over Tula.

He sees her with Garth and it's happy for them, because they are so happy and in love is impossible not to. Because they are his best friends and he loves them more than he loves himself.

He carries on. Dates other girls. Leads the team. Visits Atlantis. Becomes Marina's (King Orin's daughter) godfather. Invites Garth and Tula to join the team. Is absolutely happy when they do. He carries on.

But he never gets over her.

He knows it when she sacrifices herself. She dies with a declaration of love for Garth in her lips. And Kaldur knows he has lost the love of his life.

It's terribly hard to let go of something that never belonged to you in the first place.

* * *

><p>Dick is head over heals for Zatanna Zatara the second she steps in The Cave, looking shy and uncomfortable wearing her school uniform.<p>

She is his age (not older, that's a first in the Team) and incredibly pretty, rocking the snow-white look with wavy black hair and big blue eyes. And then she joins the mission and he founds out she's a powerful magician with a rebellious side. She keeps surprising him, which sets her apart from anyone he's ever met (with a few other exceptions, like Wally and Barbara and Alfred).

But what really does it is that she starts to share his habit of removing prefixes from the words.

He thinks he is in love.

Even when Zee knows her dad would have a fit if the word date came out of her mouth (and don't even think about 'boyfriend') she keeps flirting back with him, waiting 'till the time is right.

She likes him that much.

I mean he's a super cute fourteen-year-old that also happens to be a genius and a super hero. What's not to like?

But then Zatara is no longer there, but in the deeps of Doctor Fate. And in the absolute horror and sadness Zatanna lives through she realizes whatever she has with Dick is more serious than she expected, because he gets her, you know? Gets what's like to be alone and need alone time, and when she needs him to be with her he's always right there.

She loves him for that.

So when she comes out of her sadness (not completely, of course, because she would never stop loving her dad, therefore it will never stop hurting. She knows that) she kiss his cheek for his birthday.

And gives him a real kiss (her first ever kiss) on New Year's.

They never talk about it, but both know they are dating. Zatanna is happy with that. He keeps being sweet and right for her, and he is a good kisser.

But then summer passes by and Barbara Gordon becomes batgirl and joins The Team.

She's been Dick best friend for years, Zatanna knows, but she also knows she was his first kiss (it was during spinning the bottle, but it still counts, Zatanna knows it counts). The worst part is that Barbara is great, she is level-headed, funny, smart, and incredibly sweet. So Zatanna can't even hate her properly.

They are fine, Dick assures her, he loves her and of course he cares for Barbara, just not the same way he cares about Zatanna.

So she watches Dicks watch Barbara while Barbara watches her. And then Dick would remember Zatanna is in the room and would turn to her, so Zee would turn to Barbara, who would be already watching Dick.

It would be funny, really, if it didn't hurt that much.

For four months she pretends nothing is wrong (maybe because she's not ready to loose someone else just jet) but eventually it becomes too much. She is ready to let Dick go.

She breaks up with him in January, and when he tells her he loves her she knows it's true.

She's just not the one he's in love with.

* * *

><p>Superboy catches M'gann's attention the second she steps in Mount Justice. Maybe it's because in between the race of thoughts she's getting from everyone in the room, his are the only ones organized and collected, almost like he's learning how to think from a machine. Maybe it's because she already knows he's an alien, like her. Maybe is because she can feel his loneliness and feeling of not belonging, and she can definitely relate to that.<p>

Maybe it's just one of this things that happen just as they are supposed to.

They are the only ones of the Team living in the Cave for a while. The rest of the boys come and go (Kaldur is there quite often, much more than Robin and Wally, that clearly have somewhere, or rather someone, to go home to). M'gann learns a lot about him those days (she convinces herself she pays extra attention because she wants to learn everything she can about the earth way of life) and to her surprise (not really) she likes what she founds.

He has angry management issues, clearly. And is not the most social guy either. But he's really trying, he wants to belong, she knows. And he cares about the Team and even Speedy, she knows he's got good thoughts about League members, like batman or Black Canary.

She's falling in love, but he doesn't even know what love is just yet (at least she thinks he doesn't, she's not the best with that kind of stuff, like, did you know Wally had been flirting with her since day one? because she didn't have a clue until Dick explain it to her).

But she's patient (has to be, she's grown up waiting) and she cares with all her heart and doesn't care when he's rude or unable to act properly. And eventually he starts to see her differently, starts to have feeling about her (and maybe, just maybe, she hears his thoughts from time to time to know this).

He starts to protect her during missions, and is always around in the living room whenever she's in the kitchen. They start high-school together, and he acts like an actual boyfriend she's seen in all those TV shows.

And finally they got their first mission together and it has some bumps along the way, but is the best mission she's ever been to, because it ends with a kiss from Conner Kent.

They are not sure how the team will take it, so they don't tell them officially they're dating, even when she suspects everyone knows exactly what's going on.

And that's how life goes on for a long, long time. They go on missions, and around them couples get together and apart, and they mature and change in some ways. They are good for each other. They are happy. They are in love.

But then, a year and a half after the foundation of the team, Marie Logan is killed by Queen Bee. And that's how M'gann loses the only mum she's ever known, but all her sadness, and pain, and guilt are absolutely nothing compared to Garfield's.

He's just nine years old and he's already lost everything he's got. Almost, everything. Because M'gann is her sister, no matter how they got there, and she goes find him, and takes him to the Cave and doesn't allow herself to feel pain, because she needs to be focused on Gar.

The League allows him to stay at the Cave (Thank God, because a few months after him moving he starts to turn green and gets a tail) and M'gann keeps taking care of him. That changes her, she's sort of a mum now, in some ways. New members begin to join the team, and when she compares herself to them (so nervous, and inexperienced) she feels her changes.

But Conner can't change.

And so in order to keep up with him, M'gann changes inside, but is not really allowed to change outside. She turns her hair curly, gets rid of her freckles, then cuts her hair in a pixie style. But every time she looks in the mirror she can see the teenage girl image she got from a TV series, back when she was just a martian that didn't belong anywhere. And she can't be that girl anymore.

She keeps trying, and trying, but Conner can't understand what's happening to her, no one can. They all grow old, go forward, or stay the way they were, she's the only one who can choose what to do. And it's destroying her.

She focuses on her powers, on missions. And she tries to left everything that's too much of her in there. She takes down the villains with a ferocity that she didn't even now she could possess. She is the best they got getting information out of prisoners now. And when she's doing it nobody sees her as the girl she used to be (the girl whose body she's trapped in) so she enjoys it a bit too much.

Conner keeps not getting what's happening to her. He starts to get mad at her. At her way of handling things.

She tries to fix it all, to fix what's wrong with her, but she can do it with Conner's accusingly glares, so she makes him forget he's angry with her. And when she regrets it and gives him his memories back, everything falls apart between them.

He breaks up with her in his rage.

And when he tries to talk about it, she tells him she needs to know who she is without him. And she is breaking her own heart along with his, but he accepts it (of course he does, he's always accepted her just the way she is).

Almost a year later Lagoon boy joins the team. He looks like a monster, just like her, but has one of the biggest hearts ever, just like her. So when she realizes he likes her, she decides to give him a chance, and they start dating.

M'gann really likes him. And eventually she can start to work with Conner again, in the same squad, connecting in battle just like in the old times. She feels better, lighter.

And now, when she looks in the mirror, she doesn't see a body she's trapped in, but the appearance of a girl who was innocent, and sweet, and bright and absolutely in love. So she doesn't change anything.

(And of course, eventually, she breaks up with Lagoon Boy and comes back to being herself alone. And she is more like her sixteen-year-old than ever. And she is still in love with her first love, because she's just that cheesy. And he is still in love with her, with the her she's now, and she's always been (she just couldn't find her for a while). So they end up together, just like it was supposed to happen).

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><p>When she thinks about it in the next years, Raquel will never know how she come to develop a crush on Kaldur on her very first mission with the team.<p>

In all honestly, she believes it's because he's the only one that's not already taken (okay, only Conner and M'gann are official at the time, but come on, she's not blind or a fool).

He's handsome, and the leader. So level-headed, cool and collected. She's not had a lot of those in her life, she thinks they could do good to her. And he's so kind to her, oh god, he makes sure she's never left behind, and explains everything to her without treating her like an idiot (and she really needs that, because she's still too new at the superhero thing).

So they go on a mission and win. And then they are suddenly faced against the whole Justice League and they win again (they win for real. She can't believe it either, but they do), just in time for a New Year's party. And everyone is kissing around them, so she goes and kisses his cheek. And when he doesn't turn away, she interprets it as a good sing.

He asks her on a date a few months after that. She is pretty sure Robin and Wally bullied him into it, but she is happy about it anyway.

The date is kind of perfect. He is really cordial an polite all evening, the perfect gentleman (but then again it's Kaldur we're talking about here) and she loves the place he takes her, at Happy Harbor's port, looking at the sea. They don't run out of things to talk in all evening and he offers his coat ("I don't even need it, just brought it to look more normal") when they decide to go back walking to the Cave.

She gathers up the courage to kiss him when they arrive at Mount Justice, just to know how it feels, because somehow she knows this'll be the only opportunity she's gonna get to do it.

The date is kind of perfect, but they are not.

He never dates anyone else, and somehow Raquel doubts she's the reason why his heart is broken. She tries to date other superheroes, and it's always a disaster; and then this guy from high-school (yes, she still got to go to high-school) asks her out, and she says yes, and they go from there.

She learns that Tula had Kaldur's heart all along, eventually. And she gets pregnant at seventeen, and has Amistad, and doesn't give up on the hero gig, and joins the League as Rocket.

And Raquel Ervin gets married aged twenty to the father of her kid, who once was a high-school boy that asked her out.

And Kaldur becomes the story of her first kiss, and a good friend, and nothing more.

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><p>Sometimes, Artemis imagines that if she steps off Mount Justice's top, she will just float.<p>

Wally can not remember the last time he looked before taking a leap.

She's been trained (by daddy-dearest, no less) to act cautious, in control, and sly. She's not sure he has ever recieved any training besides running wildly around, because he is impulsive, and dynamic and too loud.

And the long line of assassins-slash-criminals she's got as ancestors? It's only comparable to the legacy of heroes he comes from.

He is all about trust and kindness, and love and care and happiness. She's guarded, and rough and hard to deal with.

They don't fall in love with each other from the beginning. They do not like each other much (or at all, by all means). It's not one of this thing meant to happen. They do not develop a crush on each other during missions (in fact, they want to rip each other head's off most of the time).

It's like trying to put fire and water together and pray for them not to destroy each other.

It's not supposed to work. _They _are not supposed to work.

At all.

But somehow, it is incredibly easy.

Everything Artemis has to do is defy her dad, become an amateur vigilant and shot a green arrow to a robot squeezing Kid Flash at the Gotham Academy's gym, which catches the League's attention.

Then agree when Batman offers her a spot on a super-teens team. And when Green Arrow (_the_ Green Arrow) suggest she's introduced as his protegée and niece.

Meet the Team at the Cave. Feel absolutely inadequate, a fraud. Knowing she's not good enough to belong with them.

See Wally for the first time.

Watch him step into the room (wearing a pair of swimming trunks, a bunch of beach supplies, sunglasses and sun cream all over his hose). Watch him trip with his own feet an land on the floor. Watch him stand up awkwardly, face splitting into an embarrassed grin.

Stare at him. All loud red hair and a dust of freckles over his hose and cheeks, and ears and shoulders (she is afraid of look further down). And she's never seen lime-skittles-colored ayes, you know? but his are.

Feeling something heavy drop to her stomach, and stay there.

Make fun of him (he had it coming, honestly). Get snapped at right back. Get blamed by him about everything going wrong in her first mission.

(Being too afraid of Jade telling them about her past to capture her).

Complain about him being annoying, clumsy and rude. And spend most of her time at The Cave glaring at him while he glares right back.

Standing by him during Kent Nelson's funeral. Being afraid of seeing him so still, so quiet. Wanting Wally (ridiculous, stubborn, sweet Wally) back.

Then the dessert, the sun. Bialya. His "wake up beautiful" forever stuck in her head. Team up with him, let him lead the way.

Trust him.

Get her memories back. Feel them come back like a punch to the gut, like a stab, like having her chest reaped apart by a self-made arrow. Deny everything (_Amnesia, remember? Completely forgot how truly annoying you are_). Refuse to meet his gaze during the next few days, afraid that he'll see how much she thinks about ninja-boyfriends with cheesy pick-up lines.

Face the Justice League. Imagine Wally yelling at Count Vertigo to leave her alone (because somehow, Wally being there is the kind of thing she imagines when she's scared). Realize it's actually happening. Try to tend his broken arm. Feel that heavy thing in her stomach stir, like waking up after being asleep since that first time she saw him.

Wonder if his freckles will disappear during winter (Pray they don't).

Die somewhere in the Artic, facing an alien ultra-ship. Wake up to find that everything was a training exercise gone too far.

Cry herself to sleep (_You died Artemis)_. Dream about withe and gold rays. And about feeling something inside of Wally break as she died.

Meet Greta. Defeat Harm. Get back to the Cave with Zee. Crash into Wally. Fight with him (_What's wrong with you? Fighting him by yourself? YOU DIED, ARTEMIS)_

See him storm out, go find M'gann and ask her what really happened on failsafe. What happened to Wally (_What happened to him? Yo were dead, Artemis. That's what happened)_.

Fight so hard to believe she belonged on the Team (the doubt consuming her, so powerful to ignore). Wally vouching for her (_You have nothing to prove, okay? at least not to me_). His amazing green eyes flashing in anger, and betrayal, and above all things, hurt (_What you've proved is that you are insecure and selfish_)

_You tried, baby girl. You can fight Jade. You can't fight me. But you can't fight who you are_.

Face Wally's closed door (_Wally, please. Please just talk to me. Please_). Knowing she can't leave, can't betray them (him). She can't go anywhere, because if she does, the last thing she will see of Wally is that door, and she's not ready for that.

Confess about her family. About who she is and where she's come from. About what she's afraid of becoming someday.

Then, softly, feel his hand (warm and heavy and slightly freckled) on her shoulder. And it somehow warms all her up.

And when he kisses her (right as a New Year's kiss, carrying her bridal style and everything. So cheesy. And so Wally) Artemis finally realizes she got it all wrong.

Not the part where she thought she hated him. She's know she's in love with him for months now (maybe from the very beginning).

She got wrong the part where she believed he was pure light, and that she would only destroy him with all the darkness she's got inside. Because all that good he is, all that light, draws her out of the blackness. Makes her better. And not the other way around.

The light in people defeats the shadows.

She can't believe she forgot that.

And when she looks back at her life, a lot of years latter, she doesn't even remember the times without her mum and with Sportsmaster, but everything she's gone through with the Team. With Ollie and Dinah. With her mum. With Jade and Roy and Lian. With Cissie. With the League. With Barry and Iris, and Jay and Joan. With Bart and the Allen twins. With The Wests.

And always, _always, _Wally.

Wally becoming a blur of red and gold. Eating as much as he can. Dancing with his Aunt Iris. Picking Barry up from school. Teaching Don how to play chess. Buying Dawn her first bike. Going for a run with Jay and Barry. Buying his parents a new, bigger Christmas tree. Buying Paula her first ever Christmas tree. Lifting Lian so she gets to put the golden star on the top of it. Organizing Dick his eighteenth birthday party. Letting Zatanna practice her spells on him. Helping M'gann with physics. Helping Conner with M'gann. Keeping Kaldur company. Giving Raquel's kid his first teddy bear. Helping the new Team. Saving the world.

Wally smiling at her, laughing at her. Making her angry. Making her laugh. Taking her out. Kissing her. Protecting her. Annoying the hell out of her. Making her happy. Consoling her. Healing her. Carrying her in his arms. Singing her that sappy love song the radio plays all day long. Talking on the phone 'till 4 a.M. Running to her house when she hangs up- Going to the University. Driving her around. Teaching her how to skate. Moving together with her. Waking up next to her every day (_morning, beautiful). _Convincing her to watch The Notebook, even when she swore she never would. Getting her a puppy (_we can call it Brucely, you get it?_). Getting his degree a year before her. Getting his first job as a forensic scientist. Shouting louder than anyone (_That's my girl!_) at her graduation. Using all his stupid pick-up lines on her. Geeking around. Proposing. Getting married. Buying a home. Helping her with her pregnancy. Being the best dad ever for Iris. Having Jai. Being the best dad ever, period. Growing old with her.

Always Wally. Looking at Artemis (with that look of happiness, and relief and mischief and memories) when he thinks she's not noticing. Like somehow could not notice him. Like she won't be staring right back.

See?

It's that easy.


End file.
